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New Year’s greetings from Dr. Clemens Prokop, the president of the World Championships organising committee

Dr. Clemens Prokop
©Bernhardt Link

Dear fans of athletics and berlin 2009™,

as the new year arrives, we would like to wish you all the best—good health and a successful 2009.

After the Football World Cup in 2006, the World Equestrian Games in 2006, and the Handball World Championships in 2007, with the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics berlin 2009™, Germany once again has the opportunity to present itself to the world as an excellent host of one of the most important major sporting events in the world.

The importance of this event for Berlin and Germany is also demonstrated in the fact that the German Ministry of Finance will be presenting a special 10-euro coin on the occasion of a sporting event for only the third time, following ones created for the 1972 Olympic Games and the Football World Cup in 2006, together with a special athletics postage stamp edition.

We would like to invite all Berliners, Germans, and their international guests to celebrate this athletic and cultural highlight—together with the 213 member organisations of the IAAF — in the Berlin Olympic Stadium and along the marathon and walking courses in the Berlin city centre, as well as in the cultural stadium at Pariser Platz. More nations will be participating this time in the World Championships than ever before.

With berlin 2009™, we hope to tie in smoothly to the special atmosphere at the World Championships in Athletics in Stuttgart in 1993, where the spectators received the Fair Play Prize from UNESCO. Together with you as the spectators, we are certain that we can achieve that atmosphere again.

We are looking forward to a successful 2009 World Championships and to greeting you in the German capital with the best athletes in the world from August 15-23, 2009.

Sincerely,

Dr. Clemens Prokop
Executive President of the World Championships organising committee and President of the
German Athletics Association, DLV

Official IAAF Partners